The Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2021 (WA) (SOPA) is no longer “new” and now forms part of the commercial landscape of construction and infrastructure projects across Western Australia.
Yet familiarity with the regime remains patchy. The same issues continue to surface across the industry, affecting participants of every scale, from site-based subcontractors to major corporates with established legal and commercial teams.
These issues are not academic and can carry real immediate commercial consequences. For contractors, they can mean forfeiting SOPA’s most powerful advantages: fast recovery, protecting cash flow and avoiding drawn-out litigation. For principals and head contractors, unfamiliarity can result in unintended exposure, compressed response timeframes and a sudden loss of control in live disputes.
In this article we outline eight recurring mistakes we continue to see in practice and practical steps that can be taken to avoid them.
The 8 most common SOPA mistakes:
1. Governing law confusion
2. Contract tunnel vision
3. Invalid claims
5. Failing to issue payment schedules
6. Payment due date confusion
7. Adjudication delay
8. Missing the right to "recycle"
Implications
The Security of Payment regime is not peripheral compliance. It is a live statutory framework that reshapes cash flow and risk allocation on every WA project.
The common thread across these mistakes is not complexity. It is timing and discipline. SOPA operates independently of commercial goodwill and rewards those who understand its mechanics and act within its deadlines.
For contractors, that means treating statutory rights as strategic tools, not fallback options. For principals and head contractors, it means embedding response systems that move at the pace the Act demands.
In WA, cash flow remains the lifeblood of construction. Understanding how SOPA works and acting decisively within its framework is not optional, it is part of modern project governance.